I went to Scotland with three girls from Hollins on March 19-21. We took the bus up to Edinburgh, Scotland. Taking the bus was NOT FUN AT ALL. The seats were very cramped and it was impossible to sleep. I made a mistake on my reservation and I thought I wasn't going to be let on the bus! We left on Thursday night, March 18 and I made my reservation on the 19th because that's what I had in my head. I showed the bus driver my reservation number and he said "Nope, that's for tomorrow night." My heart SANK. I was like "Wait? WHAT?" Then he told me to wait at the end of the line so he could see if he had any no shows because the bus was full. My friend Morgan waited with me until the last passenger boarded and then he looked at me and said "go on." THANK GOODNESS!!! I thought he was going to charge me a fee, but he never did! I felt SO lucky! That would have totally stunk if I had to go the next day. I wouldn't have gone because we were only in Scotland for 1 full day! P.S. Our bus left at 11:45 at night and we got to Edinburgh at 8:45am. FUN TIMES.
We thought we would be able to sleep on the bus, but that was most definitely impossible because of the cramped quarters and for a bit the heat was on blast! I asked the bus driver to turn on the A/C and turn off the heat! My friend Morgan was dying sitting next to the window because the heater was right next to her burning her legs!
Once we got to Edinburgh, we walked to our hostel which seemed to be at the other end of the world... but we made it eventually!
Our hostel was called Belford Hostel and it was inside of an old CHURCH! How crazy huh?! The "dorms" were in the middle of the church set up like cubicles and there were no ceilings to the cubicles so you could hear people in the next room. Pretty sure that we were the only Americans in the whole place. I think we were next to Germans and some Italians or something. We were in a six person room and we had two roommates that we think were from Poland.
We couldn't check into our hostel until 1pm so we just left some of our things in the safe area behind the front desk and went out to explore! We walked up the hill to Edinburgh Castle and on the top of the hill was a great view over the city. We bought tickets to tour the castle for 12 pounds. They didn't have a student rate! Weird. It was SOOOOOO windy. Our hair was going crazy! Here is a picture of me TRYING to take a nice picture but the wind was going crazy and blowing my hair in my face.
The castle was really amazing and the view was spectacular over the city. I took so many photos from up there.
stay tuned for more on this story....
